


Good Behaviour

by SenkoWakimarin



Series: Quid Pro Quo [3]
Category: Deadpool (Movieverse), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, M/M, Minor Violence, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 17:55:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18103508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Finding himself recovering as a guest on an unplanned vacation, Frank does his best to behave.





	Good Behaviour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inbox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/gifts).



> LMAO this was only supposed to max out at, like, 5.5K, but I have no self control. Also this AU is it's own series now I guess, because it just keeps happening. 
> 
> I will admit, I'm a little sad that I already established Cable as movie-verse Cable, because I was looking forward to writing Frank feeling tiny by comparison and couldn't. Ah, well.

This was not supposed to become a _thing_.

If Frank puts a little effort into lying to himself, he can come up with about a thousand easy justifications for his continued association with Wilson and Cable, starting with ‘one of them keeps breaking into his apartment anyway’ to ‘working with them is an efficient way to get work done’.

Honestly, though, he doesn’t bother with that shit much. Even if it _does_ feel faintly ridiculous to refer to a man solely by his stupid codename after you’ve choked on his dick, it more seems more stupid to work this hard at justifying something that’s working out pretty damn well.

Wilson is an irritating, needy, grasping little shit. He was when they met, and Frank’s pretty sure he’s going to be as long as they continue to interact, and then probably on into the future because some men just don’t fucking change. Frank doesn’t really mind, which is probably the weirdest development of the whole arrangement. Cable is very zen about the whole thing, so Frank figures there’s no point in being the one irritated about it.

And there’s something about watching a man absolutely dominate a battlefield when singing some catchy pop bullshit to himself about eating mayonnaise from a jar. It’s not a turn on, per say, but it’s… _something_. Wilson makes killing look like a dance, gun in one hand and sword in the other.

Cable is a different sort of presence altogether. Calculating, solid, dependable, he dispatches enemies with a sort of fixated precision that speaks of decades’ worth of practice. He rarely talks when they work together, not during the actual fight; he gives orders and moves on, and Frank’s pretty good with that. A man who needs to jaw in the middle of a job isn’t worth the conversation, or so Frank’s always found.

They’ve done this a few times now. Worked together. It’s professional, and logical, and those are great words to use when he’s listening to Wilson yammer about the merits of a post-job blowjob versus a _pre_ -job one. It’s _work_ , he hasn’t slept with either of them since whatever the fuck that was with Cable three months ago. He works with them, that’s as far as it goes.

If Cable sometimes pins him with a look, calling him ‘Lieutenant’ in that tone that makes Frank feel cold and then hot all over, well, he keeps it to himself. Or as much to himself as he can when the bastard is telepathic.

So it’s not supposed to be a _thing_ , but it’s kind of one anyway, and Frank doesn’t really have a problem with that. Wilson and Cable are good men to have with him in a fight, and Cable is decent with command. They find things in places Frank would never even think of looking, terrorist cells set up in grocery store basements and slavers operating out of high-end Long Island apartments. They call Frank for backup or because something they found sounds like it’s connected to something he’s been working on, and they work together.

It’s not something Frank can claim to have expected to work out when it happened the first time, but it has, and if he thinks about it, he’s kind of pleased. There’s plenty to be said for self-sufficiency and working on one’s own, but there’s a certain… security, a certain fundamental _niceness_ to working with people you can trust to do take care of themselves and get the job done.

He’s pleased, at least, until they’re working together to clear out some paramilitary compound in up-state New York that was running guns through New York City to supply their weird doomsday cult, and Cable tells him to secure a specific building on the west side of the compound while Wilson takes care of the men gunning at them from watchtowers and he provides cover fire. It sounds reasonable and Cable is generally good to listen to because he has access to solid intel and was a practiced commander.

Frank trusts him, trusts him well enough that he enters the building expecting minimal trouble. More men with guns, he thinks, because if it was set to be anything else, Cable would have warned him.

He gets about a dozen paces into the building before he hears the beeping. A steady, rapid beeping, marking a countdown. He’s heard it enough times to recognize it for the bomb it is, and makes it a few yards away from the building before anything blows. A wall of heat throws him forward, sending him airborne and then slamming him against the dirt. It’s hot enough that it feels like he’s charred, the skin of his back drawn tight over his frame. A second explosion pushes him back into the dirt, sending him sprawling after he’d managed to get on his knees.

Something crashes beside him, narrowly missing his left hand, and then something else smashes down between his shoulders. It knocks his breath from his lungs, makes it hard to think. The thing that hits his back falls and smacks sharply against his skull, more debris falling around him, nothing hitting him as hard as the piece holding his face in the dirt.

Time goes a little funny for a bit. He can feel Cable shove his way into his mind, the intrusion brusque and agitated, a sense of concern and irritation that is directed at Cable’ own self, all in an uncharacteristic lack of finesse as he checks to be sure that Frank’s not dead. Frank knows that’s what he’s doing without Cable using any actual words in the weird exchange because it’s what it _feels_ like. It’s the mental and emotional equivalent of rushing over and laying hands on him to check for a pulse.

Frank can hear gunfire, shouting, the crackle of flame. There’s pressure, heavy pieces of the demolished building holding him down. He’s not properly pinned, but the idea of trying to stand is almost hilariously difficult. Dimly he thinks he really should move and find real cover -- even in this kind of pained stupor, he’s well enough aware that he’s largely exposed. He doesn’t realize how badly wounded he is until he starts dragging himself forward on his forearms, trying to get out from under the debris and feeling the cold, wet slide of torn flesh against the slick of blood pooling under his leg.

It’s dark and then it’s not, it’s _really_ not, it’s brighter than Frank is ready to deal with, and he grunts a low noise as his eyes screw shut against the brightness, the pressure that had been holding him gone. He tries to reach for the gun still strapped to his thigh and hisses in pain. Someone is touching him. Someone else is yelling. It’s a lot of noise. His mouth tastes like blood, strong enough to turn his stomach.

He coughs and it hurts. Bad enough that it makes him retch, which hurts worse. Something is definitely hurt bad, and he doesn’t have _time_ for broken bones. This is entirely, as far as his brain is willing to process, Cable’s fault, and when he feels the asshole prying into his head again, concerned, he loudly thinks the blame at him.

It’s only when he feels Cable flinch back from him that he realizes when he’d retched he’d actually coughed up a good mouthful of bloody stomach contents, and had at some point turned his head to spit it out. He tries to open his eyes, finds it very exhausting trying to add visual processing to the workload his agonized head is trying to muddle through, and closes them again, flopping back to lay flat.

That also hurts, but maybe not as much as laying on his stomach or trying to hold himself up on his side had hurt.

He’s thinking about that weird mix of adrenaline and jealousy again, except it’s not jealousy that’s got Cable breathing heavy, harsh breaths and snarking sharply at Wilson this time. Still Frank at the center of his conflict, that much is obvious enough, even if the actual words the two of them are saying are just a lot of noise for Frank at the moment. He’d been too close to both blasts, his ears are ringing. Hearing was shot, would be for a while, he was sure.

Really, he wants a nap. A nap sounds like a great idea. And if Wilson and Cable can afford to be standing over him talking -- loudly, _Christ_ , why are they always so fucking _loud_? -- then that means whatever threat had been left after the building blew, it was neutralized now.

“Hey, is he allowed to sleep because I thought the rule with head trauma was no naps.”

It takes more focus than is strictly fair for Frank to raise a hand and flip the mouthy jackass off, but his mocked-scandalized gasp is worth it.

Next thing he’s conscious for, it’s dark again. Whatever he’s laying on is not the dry, hard-packed dirt of the paramilitary compound’s main yard. Judging by the lack of traffic noise and the absence of the brilliant street lamp that was positioned perfectly to flood his apartment with light if the curtains weren’t drawn just so, this was also not his home.

Sitting up is, in a word, uncomfortable. Breathing normally takes a conscious effort, and the tension across his chest feels a lot like bruising. He’s hoping it’s just bruising, because broken ribs are hell and he doesn’t have six-to-eight weeks to lay around healing up.

Honestly, he hasn’t felt this shitty in over a year. The center of his face feels sore and stuffy, which implies a broken nose. The back of his head hurts too, a sort of migraine that seems to dance nauseatingly from the base of his skull up to the crown of his head, pressure behind his eyes and a dull rushing roar in his ears. His mouth tastes like shit, presumably because he hasn’t rinsed it since coughing up a mouthful of bloody puke.

And he needs to piss.

Where the fuck is he?

The room is dim, and definitely not one he’s been in before. He’d thought maybe he was in Cable and Wilson’’s apartment, but the lack of distant nattering TV chatter is a dead giveaway that it’s not that either. Also, the space is bigger than the bedroom he’d woken up in when Cable had knocked him out that first time, months ago. Too clean to be Wilson’s room.

When his foot hits the hardwood floor, he hisses through his teeth, resisting the urge to jerk his leg back up into the bed, under the down comforter, where it was warm. The wood is freezing against the soles of his feet, and he tenses his toes against it, bracing himself before pushing to a stand.

Yeah, all of him hurts, but his weight is easy to distribute on his legs, and despite the soreness -- he’s sure he’ll be bruised all over when he gets a chance to look -- he’s sure nothing beyond his nose is actually broken. The long, hot line of pain on his left leg resolves itself to a hideous gash that’s already neatly sewn closed. Somewhere along the line, his clothes have vanished, leaving him in the plain grey boxer briefs he’d been wearing under his Punisher getup.

The itchy tenseness across his back, the backs of his arms and legs, and the back of his neck, suggests burns from the explosion. Really, as always, he should just consider himself lucky and figure out where the fuck he’s been taken so he can go home. He has work in a couple days, because unlike certain loudmouth mercenaries, he doesn’t get paid for killing assholes, and he doesn’t want to lose his apartment. The price of a deposit on a new place would wipe him out, and he needs to resupply soon too.

 _We won’t let you lose your apartment_.

A sense of dry amusement accompanies the invading thought, and Frank scowls, limping toward one of the three doors in the room. He figures one is probably a closet, but that leaves him two options for an exit.

 _Lay back down. I’m making you something to eat, and you need to rest_.

Frank huffs, gritting his teeth. He didn’t care for this shit, what Wilson called ‘brain footsie’. Frank thought _invasion of privacy_ was a better term, but Cable had seemed shocked and kind of offended when Frank had grumbled about it once, so he tried not to bitch too much. _I need to piss_ , he finally thinks back, and he can _feel_ the mental wince. He’s not good at this shit, and Cable always acts like Frank’s shouting when he tries. This time, it makes Frank grin a little, privately pleased. If he had to be uncomfortable, Cable could deal with a little mental shouting.

_The door by the dresser._

It’s hard to describe, but after that he’s almost positive Cable has withdrawn entirely from rooting around in his head. It’s not really safe to assume he’s alone with himself if Cable is in the same building, or maybe ever -- Frank doesn’t know how that shit works -- but there’s a certain sense immediately after Cable stops talking to him, after the conversation is ostensibly over that’s a sort of comfortable loneliness, and Frank accepts that as sign enough that he’s being afforded some measure of privacy.

The light in the bathroom seems far too bright when Frank turns it on, but with it off it’s pitch black. The room has no windows, no ambient lighting. Frank huffs and leaves the light on, eyes squinched against the brightness. The toilet is weird, the kind of overly smooth, stylized thing that screams more money than sense. It’s a toilet, why does it need to be fancy? The sight of it makes Frank feel grumpier than he was already inclined to be, and by the time he’s washing his hands in the sleek granite basin, he’s ready to leave. Not just the bathroom, this whole weird, nicely appointed apartment he hadn’t asked to be brought to.

It doesn’t help that his face is a mess when he looks in the mirror. There’s a slice in the skin along his right cheekbone with a neat line of stitches already laid in it. He doesn’t remember the injury or being treated, but given that there’s not blood crusted all over his face and someone’s taken what’s left of his shirt, it’s logical to assume Cable cleaned him up while he was unconscious.

No amount of stitching or washing up was going to help the livid bruising that swallowed half his face and bloomed around his nose.

Rummaging around the room, looking for his belongings, he’s starting to get irritated when Cable pushes his way through the door. He’s dressed down, a black t-shirt that looks about two sizes too small judging by how tight it clings to every dip and swell of Cable’s frame and a pair of worn out jeans with holes in the knees. With him carrying a tray with a steaming bowl of soup and bread, the overall effect is alarmingly domestic.

“You should lay back down,” he says, as if it’s somehow more confusing that Frank should still be up, trying to get his shit together. Cable steps past Frank with a sigh, setting the tray of food on the table with the lamp and moving to adjust the curtains. The sky is a murky bruise, the sun low, almost disappeared for the day. “At least stay and eat.”

“Where are we?”

“A safe house. One of mine.”

Frank scowls and resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose purely because he knows it’ll make the pain in his face worse. “A safe house _where_ , smartass.”’

The bastard has the audacity to grin, which is enough for Frank to know he’s not going to like the answer. Sure enough, Cable spreads his hands and says, “The Alps.”

“As in Switzerland?”

“Yeah,” Cable says, and there’s a sort of gotcha-smug to the delivery that makes Frank want to deck him. “As in Switzerland.”

It occurs to Frank to be angry. It’s essentially kidnapping, taking him out of the country while he’s unconscious. He didn’t ask for this shit and really, honestly, should be angry. He reaches for it -- anger is his default anymore, in all its many and varied tones and degrees. It should be the natural response.

What he feels, instead, is exhaustion.

He’s almost forty-five but he feels decades older. His body hurts. His _head_ hurts. He glowers at Cable, head angled down and hands curled at his sides. The anger he knows he’s perfectly within his rights to feel seems far off, and honestly, the bed was pretty comfortable.

“You know you’re a fucking prick, right?”

Whatever it is that shows on his face seems to be enough to make Cable lose a little of that smugness, even as Frank’s pulling the duvet back over himself, wincing as he sits against the pillows. He takes the bowl of soup when it’s offered and studiously doesn’t look up from it when Cable settles on the edge of the bed by his knees.

Frowns when a hand settles on his leg.

Maybe it’s juvenile, but there’s a certain visceral pleasure to making a guy as self-confident as Cable get all _tentative_. Frank isn’t much for power-trips, and that’s certainly not the relationship dynamic they’ve had thus far, but it’s satisfying, especially the way Cable tries to ingratiate himself with physicality. It makes Frank think, weirdly, of the way he’d kissed Frank’s temple before leaving after…

Cable clears his throat and Frank finally looks at him. He looks discomfited, which Frank will accept as a small victory. Bastard deserves to be uncomfortable.

“So, in fairness, I thought it would be easier to get you to stay if we were somewhere you couldn’t just walk away from,” Cable says, and the utter sincerity in his tone sort of saps the satisfaction of making him feel bad for being a prick. “But I didn’t expect it to be an idea that would upset you.”

“Kidnapping usually a lot more fun for you?” Frank asks, dragging his spoon through the broth, watching seasonings swirl around chunks of vegetables and chicken. The warning way Cable squeezes his leg, just below the knee and just hard enough to ache, makes Frank smile faintly.

“I want you to let me take care of you,” Cable says, and his voice is a low rumble but there’s nothing to it that’s threatening, nothing but kindness. It’s not a way Frank’s used to being talked to, not for years now, and he shoots Cable a glare, assessing him for any sign that he’s been made fun of.

He’s not exactly the kind of man people go out of their way to look after. He makes a point not to be that kind of man, because men who need looking after are men who draw attention. They become targets, they are remembered later. Frank can’t afford to be more of a target and he likes being relatively anonymous in his day life.

But Cable meets his glare evenly, face impassive. For a man who so often looks grim, he has a good face. Battered, closed off, but still good in a sort of rough-hewn, survivalist sort of way. He looks honest, and Frank sighs through his nose and finally takes a bite of the soup, which seems to make Cable relax a little.

“Just stay for a couple days,” he says, his hand back to that gentle rubbing of Frank’s leg through the blanket. “Call it a favour to me.”

Frank’s eyebrows slide up as he rolls his gaze back to meet Cable’s. He taps the spoon against the rim of the bowl for a second, mulling a thought over before speaking. “I think you already owe me one.”

“Is that what you think, Lieutenant?”

Cable’s tone makes Frank feel, as it always does when he growls that rank title, hot and cold all over. He can feel his face colour, just enough to be noticeable, but he keeps his eyes locked with those mismatched ones. Lifts his chin and rests the spoon against the bowl. “I goddamn know so.”

“Then stay, and I’ll owe you two.”

So Frank stays. He lets Cable cook for him and check his bandages, accepts the burn salve he rummages out of a massive first aid kit. It’s difficult to apply to some parts of his back, but Frank is used to contorting himself in unpleasant ways to deal with an inconvenient injury, and he’s perfectly capable, thank you very much, of applying his own medicine. He appreciates that Cable, while availing himself in anyway Frank asks, respects that Frank prefers taking care of himself.

The house -- and it’s a whole ass house, because evidently mercenary work is really just that lucrative -- is full of big windows letting in too much natural light and incongruously comfortable, homey furniture. Frank’s initial impression of opulence seems to be at odds with Cable’s actual decorating sense, which reads as ‘secondhand chic’ -- solid and comfortable items that are easily replaced and have obviously been beaten on. The couch is comfortable, but there’s stuffing coming out of one cushion and it groans every time Cable sits or moves on it. The fixtures -- faucets, showers, toilets -- are all of the same style as the one in the guest bathroom Frank had first visited, leading Frank to assume that whoever built the house envisioned it being inhabited and furnished by someone with a more affluent, post-modern taste.

Instead it’s Cable, who lives somewhere between neat and tidy soldier and slovenly bachelor. There’s books tossed on side tables and jackets dumped on the backs of kitchen chairs, dishes sit unwashed for hours after a meal. The whole wall on one end of the living room is given over to a massive gun rack holding weapons Frank assumes must come from the future, since they don’t look like anything he’s familiar with.

On the third day, when they’re both sure that despite the livid bruising smattered over Frank’s chest and down his sides (likely across his back, too, though it’s hard to tell under the splotchy red of the burns), he’s not broken any of his ribs, Cable offers to let Frank fire one of those unnecessarily large guns. “Since you spend half the day staring at them,” he says, and it’s somewhere between casual and a tease, leaving Frank feeling a little uncertain.

It’s an excuse to get outside, he decides.

Cable walks him through the workings of the gun, which as far as Frank can suss is some kind of horrible amalgam of garbage convincingly pieced together in the shape of a weapon. He half expects the trigger to break off in his hand when he squeezes it, because up close the damn thing, heavy or not, feels less like a gun and more like a weird art piece. Cable is charmingly enthusiastic about explaining the way the weapon works, half of which goes over Frank’s head because the technical terms Cable uses are largely foreign to him.

He gets enough to pick up that the weapons are powerful, highly customized by Cable, and that Cable doesn’t have many people to talk guns with.

The first time he pulls the trigger, the kick off the rifle-esque thing slams him so he stumbles back a few steps, caught off guard. The stock slams into his shoulder and shocks a bark of a noise out of him, prompting a chuckle from Cable. The gun is heavier than what Frank usually wields, and it takes him a second shot to get the hang of the weight and the kick, but he’s always been a quick study when it comes to guns.

By the time they head back inside, Frank is sweating under the heavy coat Cable had pushed on him, and he’s glad to shrug it off.

“You should shower,” Cable says, taking the coat as he moves past to return the gun to its place on the wall. “I’ll get a late lunch going.”

It all feels… disturbingly simple, easy, and that’s clue enough to Frank that it’s time to pull the plug. He’s got work tomorrow, for one thing, but for another, laying around resting non-life-threatening injuries really isn’t his style. He doesn’t like disappearing.

“I gotta go back to the city,” he says flatly, and Cable looks at him, calm and even, seeming to think for a minute before nodding.

“Shower anyway. I’ll make something simple.”

It says something, maybe, that Frank doesn’t argue. He gets in the shower in the guest bathroom, and it’s not exactly _expected_ when Cable slides in after him five minutes later, but it’s not exactly a shock, either.

“I didn’t call in one of my favours,” Frank says, mostly because it feels very much like he has to say _something_. Cable laughs, running his hand over Frank’s back, his palm feeling rough and cool against the burns.

“Did I imply that you had,” Cable asks, and then he’s standing between the spray and frank, shielding him from the water. His eyes are bright, the mechanical one actually glowing, and his smile is something sharp. Honestly, Frank has no idea what he’s meant to say to that, so he settles on saying nothing, which is just as well because Cable’s hand is suddenly on Frank’s dick.

Generally Frank prefers sex being a little less of a spontaneous thing. He’d rather, in most cases, a little buildup -- this kind of thing makes him feel a little walled in, most of the time.

The thing is, it feels like the last three days of sitting around; all the watching Cable cook, the thumbing through books he’s not exactly interested in, the listening to television played largely in languages he doesn’t speak, sleeping (god so much sleeping) in that too-spacious, too-neat guestroom… all of that feels like it’s own sort of buildup, with the promise of favours owed hanging between them. A boil waiting to bust, tension wound like an overtaxed rubber band, ready to snap at the barest added pressure.

Cable doesn’t talk a lot. Spending time with him is a lot of time spent in companionable silence; they do their own thing, and talk if something occurs to one to talk about, but mostly, it’s just a very pleasant kind of quiet. An understanding quiet; they’re neither of them the sort of men overburdened with a need to chatter. This is no different. Cable gets Frank almost completely hard with a few economical motions of his hand and then he’s got his mouth on him and Frank thinks, stupidly, that his mouth feels a lot better than his fingers.

He knows Cable’s peeking at his thoughts because the scrambled thought no more resolves itself into something approaching coherence than the smug asshole is snorting a rough laugh, still sucking at his cock like it’s his job.

“Jesus Christ,” he grumbles, sliding fingers into the wet strands of Cable’s hair.

Frank hasn’t had an overabundance of experience fucking in a shower, especially not one built into a fancy seamless glass enclosure, and so he settles his stance and focuses on not letting himself lean against the glass or tug at Cable’s hair, because breaking the shower stall seems like the same kind of bad etiquette as hair pulling right now.

_You’re not going to break the glass._

Even the bastard’s telepathic voice is smug. Frank tangles his fingers into silver hair and pulls a little, growling. “Shut up and suck my dick.”

Wonder upon wonders, the self-satisfied bastard actually does. He’s good at it too, practiced and confident, squeezing Frank’s hip with metal fingers while rolling his balls in the other hand. It feels good, good enough that Frank’s got his teeth grit and his eyes half closed. When those fingers slide back further, pressing at his perineum, Frank gasps and starts to buck forward before catching himself.

 _Very good, Lieutenant._ Cable purrs in his head, ducking in to swallow around Frank’s cock, taking the head into his throat to make Frank groan. _Such a good, considerate soldier. If I let you come, is that going to be it for you for the night?_

The fingers behind his balls press again and then move once more, gripping his ass. There’s a weird pain-pleasure to the clutch of those fingers, because his ass is as burnt as the rest of him, but that adds to the overwhelming _good_ more than it detracts. And fuckit, this really wasn’t supposed to become a _thing_ , but it feels ridiculous now to think he’d been trying to avoid this.

“No,” he breathes after a second, because he won’t. It’s been a while since someone else brought him off, and even if it hadn’t been, he’s always been blessed with a relatively short refractory period. He’ll need a few minutes before he’ll be ready to get it up again, but he can.

It’s more surprising to him that he’s interested in doing so.

However much of that Cable picks up, it must be enough. When the man decides to apply himself to a task, he’s single minded about it. It’s not altogether different from the way he was when Frank was the one on his knees; whatever the position they’re in, Cable’s the one in control.

Between the fact that it’s been a good amount of time between blowjobs for Frank and Cable just being damn good at it, it doesn’t take a whole lot before Frank comes. He’s pretty sure he’s breathing harder that Cable when the man turns his head and spits into the drain.

“Finish up quick,” Cable barely sounds affected at all, just hungry as he slides out of the shower and grabs a towel. He’s out of the bathroom before Frank’s even grabbed the bar of soap, and honestly, Frank’s dazed enough already that he doesn’t even question the order. He’s inclined to be obedient after this weird drawn out lead in and an orgasm that had him feeling like his fingertips were full of static, especially with the implied promise of another on the near horizon.

Still, he takes the time to gingerly scrub away the sweat and flake away the dead skin off his burns, where he can reach them, before turning the water off and grabbing the towel remains. He finds, stepping out of the steamy warmth and into the cool of the bathroom, that while his joints hurt a little more than usual, the bruises feel a bit better, as if the ache has washed away with the dirt.

He pats himself dry, avoiding the worst of the burns, and hangs the towel up neatly, considering his cast-off trousers before deciding to leave them here for now. It’s unlikely that they’ll be of much use to him for a bit.

Cable is waiting for him on the bed in the guest room, equally naked. He’s leaning back on the pillows with one leg drawn up, fisting his cock, and it’s kind of weird, really, that Frank’s eyes linger there. It’s a dick, like a hundred other dicks. There’s no such thing, in Frank’s experience, as a pretty dick, but Cable’s dick is _interesting_. The line of metal running up the shaft, the heft of it; Frank remembers what it felt like in his mouth, pushing down his throat, and feels saliva pool on his tongue.

The grin on Cable’s face is enough to tell him he heard that.

“You think so loud all the time, Frank,” he says, gesturing Frank to come closer to the bed. Just the way he’s staring makes Frank feel that same heat, nervous and aroused; aroused because he’s nervous and nervous because he’s aroused. He doesn’t let most people affect him this way, but there’s something about Cable, something about the way he holds himself and handles himself that makes it feel okay to set aside the control Frank usually craves. He can hand everything over to Cable and it will be fine, because Cable isn’t going to use it against him or hurt him.

He swallows tightly, and he’s pretty sure the dry sound that results can be heard across the room. “I think you’re the only person I’ve ever had bitch that I think too much.”

Cable’s grin is a knife blade. “I wouldn’t say ‘too much’. Just loud. All the time, like no one can hear you. You think I can’t hear you thinking about how much you liked sucking my cock, even when you’re practically projecting an invitation to fuck your mouth again.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s not about what I want. I got what I want.” Frank feels something, a sort of pressure against his elbow, coaxing him toward the bed again, like a hand steering him without Cable moving at all. “You liked choking on me. Liked not being able to breathe, liked having no control. But even then, you wanted something else. Even when I was giving you such a treat, you wanted more.”

He’s not wrong. Frank had spent half the time on his knees trying desperately not to think about how that heavy cock, with that line of corrugated metal, would feel pistoning into him from behind, Cable’s bulk curled over him, holding him still, laying claim. Thinking about it now, with Cable reclining there before him, makes him feel ridiculously dirty, and he’s not even said anything. He’s not ashamed, per say, by the desire, just not accustomed to that sort of thing burning through him this way.

Standing this close, Cable can finally touch him. He takes Frank by the wrist and jerks him in close, so his thighs are against the bed. “I’m tired of doing all the work. Reading your mind, figuring out what you want, how to give it to you. So you’re going to tell me, out loud, what it is you have in mind. Can you do that, Lieutenant?”

Frank doesn’t need a mirror to tell him he’s gone bright red; he can feel it, heat baking off his face like a fresh new burn. It takes him a moment to nod, longer before he can speak. When he does manage words, his voice is low and soft, hardly his own at all. “I want you to fuck me.”

“Very good.” There’s something in his tone, something halfway between a jeer and honest praise, and it makes Frank feel hotter still. “Come on. Get on the bed, then. Lay on your stomach, I know your knees hurt.”

That gets a sharp look, but Cable just returns it with something so placid it’s hard to imagine he’s being mocked. Frank works hard not to advertise the pain he walks around with, the twinge of old wounds, the ache in his knees from too many long falls and rough landings. Cable noticing should be a blow, but honestly, somehow, Cable makes it feel like it’s just a consideration, not an exposure of weakness. Once Cable budges over, Frank gets on the bed as instructed, laying flat with his cheek against the pillow, face turned toward Cable, waiting. This way he can watch the mutant observing him, and expects it when warm metal fingers trace over the lines of his back.

“These still hurt?” Cable asks, and Frank assumes he means the burns, so he shakes his head. They don’t, really; they’re tender if pushed on, but mostly they just itch. He’s had enough burns to know they’re nothing there worse than a few second degree marks, gone in less that three weeks if he keeps everything clean and lets them breathe. Most of it’s first degree, utterly inconsequential, and he bites back a soft sound when Cable glides his palm over the swell and dip of muscle moving to kneel almost out of sight by Frank’s hips.

He trusts Cable. He trusted him enough to charge blindly into a building they hadn't really reconned and he trusted him in bed with him now even after getting literally burned. It’s dangerous, he thinks, trusting someone that way, but it’s familiar, too, pleasant in a fundamental and undeniable way.

Teeth dig into his forearm when Cable squeezes his ass and then pushes him open. He feels like he’s on display, like meat being looked over for quality, even as Cable stops staring and starts touching. He’s being tested, and he finds that he strangely doesn’t mind, is eager, even. His cock is swelling against the duvet and his teeth against the flesh of his arm make an interesting counterpoint to the slick slide of lubricant-coated fingers pressing at him. Not pushing in yet, just toying.

“C’mon, sometime today,” he grumbles, and hisses sharply through his teeth when Cable smacks his ass.

“When we do this your way, you can call all the shots you want,” Cable says mildly, and the implication, unspoken but heavy, that Frank might not _want_ to call any of them, makes Frank shiver a little in a way that has nothing to do with the finger pressing against him, just barely poking inside. “But this time, you’re gonna be patient.”

And the worst of it is, he knows he will be. He’ll be as patient as Cable wants him to be, because he loves this. He loves handing the control over, all at once or piecemeal, so that all the power is in someone else’s hands, so that he’s a just a body doing what that trusted other person needs from it. He sinks his forehead against his arm, fingers clutching at the bedding, and listens to Cable hum a soft, fond sound.

Frank’s fucked and been fucked a fair few times. Maria could top with the best of them, but they’d never tried pegging or anything like that. She preferred bossing him around, positioning him and making him hold it, putting him in his place rather than fucking him into it. There had been others, though, before her, a couple guys in the Marines, though that was risky enough that he hadn’t much enjoyed it, despite the fun of comparing stories with his wife later.

The point is, he’s got plenty of experience. Getting fucked isn’t new; you can take a dick in the ass and still be the one calling the shots. What’s new, really new, is the sense of submission. Of willingly giving it over. It’s not like with Maria, who shouldered a certain amount of his shit but didn’t want to hold it all; Maria couldn’t know everything he’d done and didn’t want to. That was part of their deal -- he had to know what to hold back to keep her clean.

It’s not like that with Cable. Maybe it’s the telepathy, maybe it’s just the fact that it’s been _so long_ since Frank gave himself up in any way, but it feels like there’s no point in holding anything to his chest. He is in no kind of control, gasping into the pillows and shivering as Cable works him open, fingering him more than Frank thinks is strictly necessary. He has no desire other than to lay there and take it. A dim part of him wants more, but stronger is the sense that he needs to be _good_ , whatever that means, and take what he’s given without complaint.

If he’s good, Cable will give him what he wants. What he deserves.

“I like you like this,” Cable says softly, knuckle deep, rolling his fingertips against Frank’s prostate to watch him master the impulse to writhe. “Wade always turns into a brat, always wants more faster, harder, deeper. But not you, no, you’re a good little soldier, taking exactly what he’s given.”

He’s not, not really; he was terrible in the service, the bane of commanders who didn’t know how to make use of a man as intuitive and charismatic as he was. Others listened to him and followed him, that was what helped him rise in the ranks, but he was only obedient for commanding officers he believed in. The people who proved they knew enough to keep their men alive. Schoonover had proven himself, so Frank bowed his head to him, even when he thought the orders were crap.

He’s good for Cable not because he’s a soldier but because he wants someone to trust, and Cable exudes the sort of confidence and self-possessed certainty that makes it very easy to trust him. More, when he fucks up, he’s actually sorry about it. Actually cares.

The thick fingers pull slowly out, and Frank braces himself for more, expects to feel the shifting of the mattress as Cable moves into position that he actually feels it. He’s halfway tranced out, too ready, too deep in his own head, it takes Cable nudging at his shoulder to pull him back up enough to realize Cable’s still sitting beside him.

“Get in my lap. I told you, I’m tired of doing all the work.”

Frank doesn’t scramble, but it’s not because he has any kind of dignity. He moves like he’s half expecting the room to catch fire, like he’s expecting an attack, not necessarily from Cable  but from somewhere. Too much good makes him paranoid, and this isn’t like kneeling in the comfort of his apartment with his throat full of cock. It’s different, the way a house cat is different from a tiger.

In careful, measured movements, Cable offering a hand to position him the way he wants, he straddles Cable’s legs, heart somewhere in his throat as hands grip him and hold him open and he kneels over Cable’s cock. He holds that position for a moment, then exhales a long breath and sinks down.

Penetration always hurts on some level, no matter the angle or the prep, and in this position Frank is taking more of Cable faster than he might have chosen if he weren’t fighting gravity. Cable feels huge and hot, a brand buried in him, pushing ever deeper. The sensation of the metal rippling against his rim as he sinks down is both bizarre and dizzyingly good. It’s not sharp or rigid the way he expects it to be; it’s like a different texture of flesh; there’s a certain sort of give to it that makes it pleasant. He finds his hands gripping hard to Cable’s shoulders, ragged nails digging into the flesh of one shoulder, panting as his ass comes to rest against Cable’s groin.

“There you go,” Cable says, his hands settling on the jut of Frank’s hips, thumbs following the V, guiding him as he slowly rocks in a gentle undulation, getting used to the feeling. “That’s what you wanted. That’s good, right?”

Frank can’t talk. He absolutely cannot. His eyes are too wide, and each exhale is a soft, breathy noise, obscene and telling. His cock is starting to drool again, hard between them. Carefully -- every move feels like he has to focus pointedly to accomplish -- he moves to lock his arms together, hands bumping the back of Cable’s neck as he grips one wrist in the other hand.

But it _is_ good. He can’t deny that, doesn’t want to. It’s better because Cable gives him those few moments, no more, really, than a minute or so, to really get used to the sensation.

Then, without Cable needing to tell him -- he just squeezes gently on one hip -- Frank rises up and sinks down. That feels _better_ , Cable hitting something good and deep in him, the heat and texture of his cock dragging as Frank starts a slow, steady ride. It’s not exactly bouncing -- he’s not going to be the guy who bounces on another dude’s dick like he’s never been fucked before and can’t get enough  -- but it’s _something_.

Something that becomes mind-blowing when Cable starts moving with him, rocking up as Frank sinks down, targeting Frank’s prostate with every deep thrust. Frank doesn’t realize he’s moaning in time until Cable chuckles and asks again, “Is that good?” He bites down on his own lip, ducking his head, and focuses on the sensation.

He could come like this. Come on Cable’s cock, sitting on it and taking it as deep into himself as he can, never touching his own dripping dick. Part of him thinks that’s the best option, thinks any added sensation might kill him; it already feels like he’s clutching a live wire, bolts of concentrated pleasure coursing through him like hot electricity.

Then rough, gun-calloused fingers wrap around him, right as he’s thinking it would be too much, tugging him in sharp, quick jerks of the wrist, and he can’t do anything but move faster, rocking on the cock buried in him and then up into the hand around him, unable to decide which is better, which is easier to take.

It’s a lot, it’s more than he thinks he’s felt in years. It’s the kind of sex that feels drawn out and languid, not just hot blind need driving the body but a slow-building, indulgent pleasure. His orgasm, when he reaches it, isn’t so much an explosion as it is the burst of colour at sunset, building into something spectacular and suddenly just there, gorgeous and breathtaking and heart-stopping.

“I’m close,” Cable warns, and that seems so fucking bizarre, so goddamn _considerate_ of a man who choked him on his dick and made him swallow his spunk, and all Frank can do is laugh, shaking his head. The panic of not knowing what’s meant to happen, the sick do-and-don’t desire that had highlighted the tail end of their first time, that’s gone. Because Cable can do whatever he wants, it’s not really like Frank can stop him, and Frank, right now, is on his best behaviour.

Best behaviour means taking what’s given.

Both hands are on his hips now, the flesh one sticky with Frank’s own come, clutching as Cable drives Frank down hard, pounding up into him. It’s rough, and Frank groans, laughter gone as his over-sensitized body sings with the overwhelming pleasure/pain. The sensation of Cable finishing is weird, somewhere in the no-man’s land of satisfying and disgusting. It leaves them both panting, foreheads resting together, just resting for a moment.

It’s a lot. It’s too much. When Cable’s hands are off him, Frank grits his teeth and climbs off, stumbling on his knees and landing heavily on his side, resting that way for a minute.

Cable watches him, considering. Frank is pretty sure, judging by his look, that he knows the way Frank’s already trying to compartmentalize, trying to decide how much of that was just bald need and touch-starvation taking the reigns and how much was genuine want. Trying to figure out to what extent to admit to enjoying it, trying to settle on if and when he’ll allow it to happen again.

It will happen again. So less if and more when.

“Go rinse off again. Clean up, get dressed. I’ll take you home when you’re ready.”

Rational, unoffended, easy. There’s a reason Cable is easier to spend time with than most people, and Frank thinks there’s maybe something to that telepathy bullshit after all. If nothing else, a man who can flip through your thoughts knows when not to push things.

So he shuffles off, pointedly not thinking about the gross (and yet strangely good) sensation of come leaking out of him. If there’s one thing an over-sized shower stall is good for, it’s cleaning up after sex. The warm water helps relax the tension in his muscles even if it makes the burns down his back sting more fiercely than before.

Frank has no idea how any of Cable’s weird future tech works and frankly doesn’t care. It got them here, and as it turns out, it gets them back to his apartment just as painlessly, Cable resting a hand between Frank’s shoulder blades and saying, “bodyslide by two” like a command to something Frank can’t see. He blinks, and suddenly they’re not in the bright, open guest room but in the dim, vaguely crowded little studio space Frank calls home.

There’s an odd relief, like coming home from vacation and finding that, despite having enjoyed yourself, you’d really missed your bed and your own coffeemaker.

“Remember, I owe you one.” Cable says by way of parting, dismissing Frank’s offer of a cup of coffee with a wave of his hand. He doesn’t seem in a hurry to rush off, but he doesn’t seem particularly keen on lingering, either. This is more like a way-point for him, Frank supposes, just a place to pass through on his way to somewhere else.

He smiles anyway, watching Cable unlock his door. “You owe me two,” he says, and Cable smirks a little, like that satisfies something in him to hear, and closes the door behind himself, leaving Frank standing alone in his apartment.


End file.
